The Collectors of Lost Souls: Turning Kuru Scientists into Whitemen

by Warwick Anderson

Winner, 2010 William H. Welch Medal, American Association for the History of Medicine Winner, 2010 Ludwik Fleck Prize, Society for the Social Studies of Science Winner, General History Award, New South Wales Premier's 2009 Literary Awards This riveting account of medical detective work traces the story of kuru, a fatal brain disease, and the pioneering scientists who spent decades searching for its cause. When whites first encountered the Fore people in the isolated highlands of colonial New Guinea during the 1940s and 1950s, they found a people in the grip of a bizarre epidemic. Women and children succumbed to muscle weakness, uncontrollable tremors, and lack of coordination, until death inevitably supervened. Facing extinction, the Fore attributed their unique and terrifying affliction to a particularly malign form of sorcery. The Collectors of Lost Souls tells the story of the resilience of the Fore through this devastating plague, their transformation into modern people, and their compelling attraction for a throng of eccentric and adventurous scientists and anthropologists. Battling competing scientists and the colonial authorities, the brilliant and troubled American doctor D. Carleton Gajdusek determined that the cause of kuru was a new and mysterious agent of infection, which he called a slow virus (now called prions). Anthropologists and epidemiologists soon realized that the Fore practice of eating their loved ones after death had spread the slow virus. Though the Fore were never convinced, Gajdusek received the Nobel Prize for his discovery. The study of kuru opened up a completely new field of medical investigation, challenging our understanding of the causes of disease. But The Collectors of Lost Souls is far more than a tantalizing case study of scientific research in the twentieth century. It is a story of how a previously isolated people made contact with the world by engaging with its science, rendering the boundary between primitive and modern completely permeable. It tells us about the complex and often baffling interactions of researchers and their erstwhile subjects on the colonial frontier, tracing their ambivalent exchanges, passionate engagements, confused estimates of value, and moral ambiguities. Above all, it reveals the "primitive" foundations of modern science. This astonishing story links first-contact encounters in New Guinea with laboratory experiments in Bethesda, Maryland; sorcery with science; cannibalism with compassion; and slow viruses with infectious proteins, reshaping our understanding of what it means to do science.

Genres: Anthropology, Nonfiction, Science, History, Medicine

328 pages, Hardcover

First published October 3, 2008

Reviews

[Stas]

From the blurb: "the brilliant and troubled American doctor D. Carleton Gajdusek determined that the cause of kuru was a new and mysterious agent of infection, which he called a slow virus (now called prions). Anthropologists and epidemiologists soon realized that the Fore practice of eating their loved ones after death had spread the slow virus. Though the Fore were never convinced, Gajdusek received the Nobel prize for his discovery".


In August 2009, Harper's Magazine published a translation of a previously unavailable in English piece by Sartre, "A Fine display of Capuchins". In the piece Sartre describes visiting a crypt underneath a Church in Rome, where since 1631, old Capuchin bones have been used to construct everyday use objects and for decoration. Ironically, now it is forbidden to write on them.

[Ellen · Rating 4 out of 5]

honestly such a good intro to kuru but also like i kinda wish there had been an index with a little description on each scientist mentioned bc i reaLLy lost track. also there could have been a lot more detailed explanation of how the sorcery worked and what it entailed bc im gonna have to go straight to Lindenbaum's kuru and sorcery now to get a better idea, i guess i just wish there was a little bit more about the anthropology stuff (especially bc that's what my thesis is about lol, ik i am biased). overall like it's good and real interesting bits throughout, i also wish maybe it had been a bit more condemning of Gajdusek??? like he's the central character of the text iguess, like i wish at the end it had been more like yea he did do messed up stuff and why do we celebrate him for that, but perhap that's 4 my thesis lmao

[John Richens]

I found this a very readable account of the extraordinary epidemic of kuru which affected the Fore people of New Guinea. I was fascinated when I first heard about the epidemic as a medical student and went to New Guinea to work as a doctor in the 1980s. On one occasion a local doctor who worked for me had his mother admitted for treatment of asthma and it became apparent that she was also in an early stage kuru. My wife was was asked on one occasion to visit a Fore village and film a ten year old girl with distressing symptoms of advanced kuru in order that the diagnosis could be confirmed. While broadly familiar with the kuru story, I learned much from this book about the research which took place before I arrived and and after I left. The book makes it very clear that the Nobel prizes which went to Gadjusek and Prusiner went to two flamboyant individuals who made the headlines, but whose success owed a great deal to astute observations made by other scientists, eg the scrapie expert who pointed out the similarity of kuru brains to scrapie brains to Gadjusek, and the careful studies which highlighted the decline in kuru incidence among young children as ritual cannibalism died out.

[Frida Lona · Rating 4 out of 5]

What a turn-out by the end of the book! If you are reading it, haven't finished it, but want to stop because you've understood everything about Kuru disease in Papua New Guinea, do not. This book is about the western scientists that investigated Kuru throughout the decades; and focuses on the life of Daniel Carleton Gajdusek, who dedicates everything to these people. You will learn everything about the disease throughout time, how they discovered the mystery of Kuru, and the relationships between the Western world and the Fore people. I really enjoyed it, because it is a combination of science, anthropology, and scientists' lives.

[Signe Mežinska · Rating 5 out of 5]

An excellent book where medical anthropology, history of medicine, medical ethics and insight into human nature, Nobel prize in medicine and sorcery practices meet.
"When whites first encountered the Fore people in the isolated highlands of colonial New Guinea during the 1940s and 1950s, they found a people in the grip of a bizarre epidemic. Women and children succumbed to muscle weakness, uncontrollable tremors, and lack of coordination, until death inevitably supervened. Facing extinction, the Fore attributed their unique and terrifying affliction to a particularly malign form of sorcery."

[Phil Watson · Rating 4 out of 5]

A full exploration of kuru and prion science from the 1950s to the modern day, spanning a broad range in many senses. Anderson does a great job, writes well, and his research is expansive. However, the book does flag in terms of pointedness, though his parallel of exchange relations is clever (and perhaps worthy of more elaboration). All in all, a fine read, though I wanted more.

[Anubis · Rating 3 out of 5]

the fourth chapter is the most fascinating one - a real magic for the Fore people. This chapter also revealed a crucial step for the building of modern biomedicine, the separation of human spirits from the specimen.
But the last chapter is unnecessary. It makes the book look like a cheap novel.

[Garret Shields · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting and insightful book. Example of a Postcolonial work.

[Jesse · Rating 5 out of 5]

I wrote some thoughts about this book here:
http://jgrayman.wordpress.com/2010/08...
"A compelling account of the decades-long search for the cause of kuru disease among the Fore tribe in the highlands of Papua New Guinea, once hypothesized as a slow virus, but then eventually shown to be pathogenic protein fragments (prions). The cast of characters includes doctors, biologists, anthropologists, epidemiologists, geneticists, colonial security agents, the Fore themselves, and a range of local field assistants. All are drawn in and transformed by the kuru mystery, some to great acclaim including a Nobel prize, others to great shame and scandal, and many more to an abject death. We see how social relations among the Fore and among scientists are defined and extended through networks of asymmetrical exchange. Then we see how a few from each group are able to transect parallel exchange networks, producing new hybrid identities and even more social inequality in the process."

[Lisa · Rating 2 out of 5]

I came into this book knowing something of prion diseases (which are damned fascinating) and expecting to learn more about the science behind them. Disappointingly for me, the book largely focuses on the human interactions behind and during the discovery of Kuru (think mad-cow but for humans, also acquired via cannibalism), which would be interesting if it did not dwell so much on the details. After a while, the narrative just becomes tiresome, repetetive and confusing, and it's hard to keep track of who is who.

I did enjoy the beginning several chapters, which really explored the relationship between the Kuru scientists and the native Fore people of New Guinea, and detailed the scientific, political, and international struggles in determining how to approach the study of a disease that followed no recognizable pattern.

[Tracy Duvall · Rating 2 out of 5]

It's a story too interesting to completely mess up, which is why I gave it an extra star. The problems with the book start with the title, which is greatly deceptive. The majority of this work documents in great detail the relations among U.S. and Australian researchers related to kuru, as told through their correspondence and reminiscences. The perspectives of Fore people are much less central. Further, the author presents an obviously truncated version of the the Western researchers' motivations and emotional and physical experiences. Finally, the text lacks organization and focus, and much of the theorizing, which is presented separately, doesn't bear up under close comparison to the narrative. It was frustrating and disappointing to read.